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Google's Mobile Update: What We Know So Far (Updated 3/25)

We're getting a lot of questions about the upcoming Google mobile algorithm update, and so I wanted to start a discussion that covers what we know at this point (or, at least, what we think we know). If you have information that contradicts this or expands on it, please feel free to share it in the comments. This is a developing situation.

1. What is the mobile update?

On February 26th, Google announced that they would start factoring in mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. The official announcement is here. Of note, "This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results."

2. When will the update happen?

In an unprecedented move, Google announced that the algorithm update will begin on April 21st. Keep in mind that the roll-out could take days or weeks.

3. Will this affect my desktop rankings?

As best we know - no. Mobile-friendliness will only impact mobile rankings. This is important, because it suggests that desktop and mobile rankings, which are currently similar, will diverge. In other words, even though desktop and mobile SERPs look very different, if a site is #1 on desktop, it's currently likely to be #1 on mobile. After April 21st, this may no longer be the case.

4. Is this a boost or a demotion?

This isn't clear, but practically it doesn't matter that much and the difference can be very difficult to measure. If everyone gets moved to the front of the line except you, you're still at the back of the line. Google has implied that this isn't a Capital-P Penalty in the sense we usually mean it. Most likely, the mobile update is coded as a ranking boost.

5. Is this a domain- or page-based update?

At SMX West, Google's Gary Ilyes clarified that the update would operate on the page level. Any mobile-friendly page can benefit from the update, and an entire site won't be demoted simply because a few pages aren't mobile friendly.

6. Is mobile-friendly on a scale or is it all-or-none?

For now, Google seems to be suggesting that a page is either mobile-friendly or not. Either you make the cut or you don't. Over time, this may evolve, but expect the April 21st launch to be all-or-none.

7. How can I tell if my site/page is mobile-friendly?

Google has provided a mobile-friendly testing tool, and pages that are mobile-friendly should currently show the "Mobile-friendly" label on mobile searches (this does not appear on desktop searches). Some SEOs are saying that different tools/tests are showing different results, and it appears that the mobile-friendly designation has a number of moving parts.

8. How often will mobile data refresh?

Gary also suggested (and my apologies for potentially confusing people on Twitter) that this data will be updated in real-time. Hopefully, that means we won't have to worry about Penguin-style updates that take months to happen. If a page or site becomes mobile-friendly, it should benefit fairly quickly.

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We're actively working to re-engineer the MozCast Project for mobile rankings and have begun collecting data. We will publish that data as soon as possible after April 21st (assuming it;s useful and that Google sticks to this date). We're also tracking the presence of the "Mobile-friendly" tag. Currently (as of 3/25), across 10,000 page-1 mobile results, about 63% of URLs are labeled as "Mobile-friendly". This is a surprisingly large number (to me, at least) - we'll see how it changes over time.

Excellent resource Dr. Pete. Thanks for this. It'll be a likely place to link back to in the weeks to come. Are there any twitter accounts or other reliably updated sources to reference people too as well as the date approaches and passes?

Unfortunately, Google tends not to communicate these things directly on social media (or, at least, not consistently) - and, when they do, it's usually Google+. As I personally have data, I'll share it on my account (@dr_pete) and/or the MozCast account (@mozcast).

Thanks for the Q&A's. I have another quick question. If a site is fully fluid and it's still not passing Google's Mobile-Friendly test through their tool, will Google not label this as "mobile-friendly" in search results?

I've been running into this on a few client sites and the actual "issue" is usually within a blog post on the website. An image not sized to standards or something small like that or the font size is too small.

Hi, Amanda! In the cases where you have identified the issue to be within a particular blog post, do the other pages on the same site pass the mobile-friendly test when you enter the URLs one at time? And are any of those same pages showing the mobile-friendly label in the mobile SERPs?

Unfortunately, I'm hearing reports that different validation methods are producing slightly different results. It's likely that some pages that don't pass the test will be ok, but I hate to tell anyone to just hope for the best. You might also want to check the mobile usability report in Google Webmaster Tools.

Search Engine Land came out yesterday saying it will be a page by page basis, so I guess that answers my question.

From Google:

As we mentioned in this particular change, you either have a mobile friendly page or not. It is based on the criteria we mentioned earlier, which are small font sizes, your tap targets/links to your buttons are too close together, readable content and your viewpoint. So if you have all of those and your site is mobile friendly then you benefit from the ranking change.

But as we mentioned earlier, there are over 200 different factors that determine ranking so we can’t just give you a yes or no answer with this. It depends on all the other attributes of your site, weather it is providing a great user experience or not. That is the same with desktop search, not isolated with mobile search.

Any further news on a mobile index? Realistically, how can this update not affect search results if there is no mobile index in place? I would be curious to see the results in m.domains and /mobile folders vs responsive design. Previously, Google said there would be no ranking difference, that the mobile experience was the most important part of this update, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the responsive designs may do slightly better than the other mobile versions of sites.

It's unclear whether this is some kind of re-ranking layer (and those certainly are in play today for local and other factors) or if mobile pages will get a separate index. As this gets more complex, though, and they want to do more with it, my gut feeling is that we may see the index split. I doubt they'll give us much more info on that topic for now, though - they like to keep details of the index pretty well guarded.

I'm in the middle of a freebie deal for a mom & pop, simply because all of their local competitors *aren't* 'mobile friendly'. They aren't in the most affluent area, and rely on foot traffic, so it's safe to say that mobile results are critical. Hopefully I can get everything launched soon.

I'm not promising them the moon. I've made my motivations clear. It's a bit of my own curiosity mixed with the warm fuzzies I get from turning the 'little guy' into a beast among 'little guys'.

I'm certain there are measurable ways to be 'mobile friendlier than thou'. I just don't think it would be terribly ethical to knowingly hold back with a 'live subject'. Ah well, I'm sure there's something in there for IMEC.

Thanks for giving a summary of yesterday's G+ hangout :) Super informative. Frankly, I'm a little excited about this mobile update. Since it seems like desktop and mobile rankings will now begin to diverge, I imagine more tools will surface that tracks a site's mobile rankings (hint hint Moz ;)

Right now, Google is saying there is not a difference between the two, however, I think most people would say that Responsive is the way to go.

I think the only thing that could hinder that thought is if the responsive design couldn't produce enough functionality or visual appeal to have a good user experience. Some stores just have too many product options to really make a responsive design work, so they use a mobile version of the site. Google likes uniformity, which I why most people prefer the responsive design.

Another consideration: if someone links to a responsive site--whether it was from mobile or non--the link would remain the same. That should help as well. That way there's less need to prompt users to "Switch to Desktop" or vice versa.

Dr. Pete, thanks so much for putting this Q&A together. I particularly love your no-nonsense answer to whether this will be a boost or a demotion (Q4). "...practically it doesn't matter that much and the difference can be very difficult to measure. If everyone gets moved to the front of the line except you, you're still at the back of the line." Well said!

But I mean... at the end of the day are there really people out there just waiting around for Google to say "HEY EVERYBODY! Its time to make your website mobile friendly now!!"

And are we really doing things based on what Google wants us to do or are we gearing our sites for our USERS? Google is an important piece of the puzzle of course but I feel that staying in the good graces of our visitors far outweighs anything else.

I think these changes have the backing of tons of user data--way beyond what we would have access to individually--and a lot of sites are completely in the dark still about mobile usability. Like the majority of sites on the web are happy with the status quo as long as it's working for them.

People do however look at search traffic, income, etc. When they see a sudden drop in that, they'll come around asking why. In the long view many more sites will become much more user friendly after this change.

Great point Ryan! I guess my initial thoughts on it are not the same as the average website owner that just goes along for the ride and hopes for the best. But thinking further into it, you're right. I am sure there are plenty of people out there just getting by with what they have. Makes perfect sense =)

It can be a tough call with mobile - beside the investment itself, some sites have huge mobile user bases and some have little to none. Google is essentially making the call for every site, and that's a bit simplistic, IMO. So, now, if you know for a fact that only 1% of your audience is mobile, you may well have to make the switch anyway.

Now, it's easy to say (and Google will) "Well, that's good for users", but it costs time and money. What if the resources spent on making your site mobile, when that's a tiny part of your audience, could be spent instead on other usability improvements that impacted a larger audience. I find Google has a way of turning complex scenarios into a kind of dogma, personally.

Yes :) I hate to say it, but this is a "Do as we say and not as we do" scenario. We're a 150-person company now with multiple engineering priorities and the short answer is that mobile has gotten back-burnered for too long. We hope to have the blog mobile fairly soon (no ETA yet), but product will be a bigger challenge.

Right now, our audience is not heavily mobile, but that's a difficult bit of data to crack. Our audience isn't mobile, in part, because we've trained them not to visit our site on mobile. So, it becomes really hard to predict how many people would visit us on mobile if we were more mobile-friendly. Philosophically, though, we're supposed to be thought leaders in the industry, and I personally feel we've dropped the ball on this one.

This is a matter of internal debate, and I do not speak for everyone. I also recognize that we do have many engineering challenges, like any company our size, and sometimes we make tough choices. At Moz, we try to err on the side of building a better product when we have a choice, and sometimes that means the overall site gets improved slower than we'd like.

True. It'd be interesting to know if there was a dogma tipping point. Plenty probably goes into it--like bounce rate of mobile searchers encountering non-mobile sites, load times, chrome crashes, Android stats, Analytics data, etc. Eventually though all that data is going to be pretty clear one way or the other.

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